Friday, April 18, 2008

Three blind women at a checkpoint

I read this story on Window into Palestine. It's so sad the way normal human compassion is dying a painful death on both sides.

Three blind women at a checkpoint, notes byRana Qumsiyeh, April 13, 2008[While reading this remember that a) all here arethe lucky 0.1% of the population of Bethlehem whohave a "permit" to get to Jerusalem and b) that thisis the mild forms, many died at checkpoints whilerefused to get to medical facilities and many are starvingbecause their lands and jobs are on the other side of theApartheid wall. Mazin Q]

Yesterday was not the first time I see those three blindwomen at the checkpoint. They are familiar to many whocross the Bethlehem checkpoint on daily basis to get toJerusalem. Two middle-aged Palestinian women andone elderly woman who seems to be a foreigner; couldbe German, as I have heard them talk to each otherin German at times. I have always wondered how theymanage to make their way through this maze, beingblind, when most people with perfect eye sight struggleto find their way through, when crossing this checkpointfor the first time, and have to ask for directions.

So, yesterday, despite that it was a Saturday, there was along line forming when those three blind women walkedin, and it was taking too long for the door to open and letpeople in one by one. As usual, they were let throughahead of everyone because of their situation. A fewminutes later, they got inside and it seems two of them gotthrough the metal-detector door and the third one “beeped”.The female soldier on duty screamed at her in Hebrew totake her shoes off. This female soldier is known to all of us,the crowds who go through everyday, we call her thescreamer. We know she is on duty before we even getinto the terminal, because her yelling reaches outside theWall! Of course, standing in line outside, we barely can seeanything of what is happening inside, we just hear and tryto understand what is going on. Thus, we assumed that theblind woman took off her shoes and passed again and shestill “beeped”, the soldier screamed again, now louder, inHebrew, ordering her to take her jacket off. One more time,we hear beeping, then we hear crying. Apparently, the blindwoman started to cry at that point. The soldier screamedlouder, and this time, I didn’t understand what she wassaying.

Half an hour had passed since I got in line and I was still there,and the line was not moving. People started complaining,calling, so a male soldier’s voice came through the loud speakersaying “You have to wait, we have ‘problems’ inside”. We heardmore beeping and then a loud laugh from the “screamer”.

Eventually, they opened the door and I got to the ID andpermit inspection point, there were the two other blindwomen, apparently still waiting for their companion, whohad been forced into one of the “further investigation”rooms. I went outside and got on the bus, and soon afterthe three women followed. The third one was very stressedout and in tears. It turns out; her skirt zipper was theproblem. I am not sure if she was forced to take her skirtoff in that closed 'cell', no one dared ask. As the bus droveoff, I watched her cry all the way from the checkpoint toJerusalem…

Now I need to pray and look at pictures of flowers again. I have had as much news as I can take.